


even namelessly, i'll live forever

by ZephyrEden



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Athazagoraphobia, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hero Complex, character introspection, or fear of being forgotten or ignored, takes place from childhood to mid-kh1, this poor boy has a lot going on inside his head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 08:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15287667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZephyrEden/pseuds/ZephyrEden
Summary: It doesn't matter how he does it, Riku will make sure that he's never forgotten by the people that matter.





	even namelessly, i'll live forever

It starts when he’s five.

Some of the grandmas and aunties on the island tell stories about a young man who found the world to be too small, so he left it in order to make it bigger.

Riku doesn’t know how to leave the island, but one day a man shows up and gives him a key and he finds he can never forget it. Sometimes he can still feel the shape of it in hand. Sora says he swings his wooden sword too hard whenever he remembers it.

Sora finds a cave that roars and he’s dragged to it. He puffs out his chest and walks inside, following his best friend who leads despite the way his tanned legs tremble, and instead of the monster they wanted to face, all they find is the wind. Sora thinks the cave is boring, but the second Riku suggests it could be their secret Sora is instantly invested. Riku doesn’t find it as boring as Sora does.

There’s a door in the cave that he needs to open. He can’t explain why he needs to or why sometimes he’ll see a keyhole in it that disappears if he blinks too fast, but he knows he needs to see what’s on the other side. He wishes that man’s key was his right now. His fingers hurt from trying to pry it open.

 

 

It happens when he’s six.

He loves Sora and Kairi. They’re best friends and he smiles whenever he’s around them and he wants to spend all his days playing on the beach with them. But he’s older than them which means while they keep playing in the sand, he’s sitting in a small classroom with a few other kids from the island learning about things he doesn’t care about yet.

He wants to stare out the window for the hours that he’s there, but his dad promises that if he gets good grades he’ll let him start rowing out to the other island all by himself, so he buckles down and does his best and always raises his hand even when he doesn’t know the answer.

He ignores the door in his and Sora’s secret place and plays with his friends for the little time he has with them when his dad has to row him back and forth. He tries not to pay attention to the keyhole he sees shining out of the corner of his eye and he tries not to act too happy when one morning it’s only Sora meeting him on the island instead of a pair. They pick up rocks and scrape them along the cave walls in crude portraits of their imaginary adventures and friends and he doesn’t draw the door like his fingers are itching to do.

It takes a few months, but finally his dad lets him take the boat by himself and he’s ecstatic. Now that he doesn’t have to wait around for others he can spend more time with his friends, so he paddles as hard as his weak arms will take him and fights the urge to cheer when he makes it to the dock. He doesn’t have to fight hard, not when the urge fizzles out like the remnants of the fireworks they run around with in muggy evenings of summer.

Sora is running around with his wooden sword, fighting invisible fiends as Kairi giggles and collects seashells and sometimes points in a random direction to warn Sora of more pirates coming to steal their treasure. It’s not that Riku didn’t expect them to play, but there’s a pain in his chest at the sight of them having just as much fun without him as they do when he’s there.

They don’t notice him running across the beach or sneaking into the secret place. There’s no keyhole on the door today. He places his hand flat against the wood and he swears he feels something tingling in his skin, but as soon as he thinks it the feeling is gone and he’s left to the slump against the door with the mushrooms and howling wind for company. His eyes rove across the drawings he and Sora have done until he finds something they didn’t.

He stands to look at the drawings of Sora and Kairi scraped onto the wall and he can recognize Sora’s messy work instantly, but he knows who the unfamiliar work has to belong to. He knows they didn’t promise or anything, but he thought a secret was supposed to be similar. Maybe he was wrong.

He sits back by the door and wonders why his insides hurt. He remembers the time he broke his arm falling out of the paopu tree after Sora dared him to pick one of its star shaped fruits. He thinks it might feel like that, but worse. He remembers refusing to cry that time because Sora was crying so much out of fear that his arm would always look so weirdly bent, saying he’s sorry while sniffling even though it wasn’t his fault. He refuses to cry this time even if the reasons aren’t the same.

 

 

It gets better when he’s ten.

All the kids on the island are in school by now, which means they all collectively go to the smaller island when school lets out and no one is left behind. Not physically, at least.

Riku has gotten stronger from rowing boatloads of kids over, the smaller ones always riding with him and sometimes the bigger ones do too when they’re feeling lazy. Riku doesn’t mind, despite the teasing he makes sure to do. He feels useful and as long as he’s useful he won’t be left out. He won’t be forgotten.

But Sora and Kairi still end up on their own sometimes and Riku tries not to be jealous about it. They’re all friends, they can do what they want, he doesn’t care. He starts training with Wakka and the timing is just a coincidence, they just happening to be playing together whenever Riku wants to train, not the other way around.

Riku is getting better at batting Wakka’s ball back at him, though, and the other kids aren’t satisfied with just being impressed anymore. It becomes a little island-wide competition, everyone practicing with makeshift weapons and seeing who will come out on top. The rankings change almost daily, but he’s never knocked down from the first spot. He’s become something of a role model, a hero for the other kids, and he’s fine with that. After all, nobody ever forgets the hero.

 

 

It’s starting to feel like a prison by fifteen.

He can’t forget about the door anymore. He’s reminded of it every time he looks out at the ocean and wonders what’s past it and is reminded of just how small the islands are, just how insignificant he is.

He wakes up in a cold sweat most nights, blurry childhood memories playing back on hyper speed behind his eyelids. Strangers on the island, a man who left, an inheritance, a key, stars that fall and blink out, promises he can’t remember the words to, a small island in a big ocean that hides a cave that holds a door. A door, a door, a door. There’s always a door.

No one knows that he rows out in the early mornings of the summer before the town is awake to stare at the door inside the cave. He can almost always see a keyhole in it now.

His friends don’t notice that his eyes linger on the star-shaped fruits hanging from their favorite tree as they watch the sun set beyond the water each night. He wonders if those stories are true, wonders if it makes him weak to want some guarantee that no matter what, someone will always be by his side.

They’ve already agreed to sail past the horizon on a raft with him, though, so maybe that’s guarantee enough.

 

 

It’s the night before they plan to leave that it changes.

Or maybe it doesn’t change. Maybe he’s just decided to stop turning a blind eye to it. He doesn’t know what good shielding his eyes from the truth does anyways.

He waits until it’s dark to row back to the island, not even an hour passing since he left it. He wants to see the door. He _needs_ to see the door, just one last glimpse before he never gets the chance again. The mystery of it gnaws at him still, just as it has for the last decade, but he’s willing to let it go to accomplish his goals, to follow his dreams.

The keyhole on it is glowing brightly, but his eyes trail to something he doesn’t recognize, something new. A star-shaped addition to something he was never part of to begin with.

He freezes on the spot and wonders what it feels like to have all your ribs snapped at once. He thinks it might feel something like this, but not as terrible.

He needs to get off this island.

He doesn’t even have to try. The frame of the door trembles and he opens it. Even if he’s remembered namelessly like the boy who left all that time ago, he’ll be part of the stories too, part of the promise of more than just this tiny island. He won’t be insignificant.

 

 

It’s on a pirate ship like the ones they used to pretend to play on that he comes to a conclusion.

It doesn’t matter if his friends abandon him, he won’t abandon his friends. It’s not a truth he wants to accept. He’s mad, angry, _furious_. Lonely. It took Sora no time at all to replace them. Kairi isn’t really Kairi when all she does is breathe.

There’s a churning jealousy that wells up inside him whenever he learns where Sora is and a rage towards himself that his feet take him to the other without a second thought. There’s a small part of him that’s always relieved to see that he’s okay, but the larger part grows envious at seeing the weapon in his hands, grows darker every time he confirms that Sora isn’t looking for them. He has new friends now.

He begins to hate the bitter taste in his mouth until one day he can’t taste it anymore. He focuses everything he has on getting back Kairi’s heart, on saving the one bridge he hasn’t doused in gasoline yet. He won’t let Sora beat him at this. Sora can play hero all he wants, but he’ll be the one to actually become one. It’s his only choice.

After all, nobody ever forgets the hero.

**Author's Note:**

> [riku//project destati](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JbxlYRPbZg)
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